Research collaboration among multiple institutions is growing trend

Public release date: 3-Aug-2012
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Contact: Deborah Wing
dwing@nsf.gov
703-292-5344
National Science Foundation

According to NSF report, federal initiatives and technological advances are contributing factors

A recent National Science Foundation report found that research collaboration among multiple institutions is a growing trend.

The conclusion was drawn by noting increases in the amount of total expenditures for research and development that universities pass through to other institutions and receive from other institutions.

During fiscal years 2000-2009, the amount of R&D funding that passed through universities to others for collaborative projects grew more rapidly than overall academic R&D expenditures. After adjustment for inflation, total academic R&D expenditures increased 47 percent during this period, and R&D funds passed through to others more than doubled.

In fiscal year 2000, universities provided about $700 million to other schools and about $482 million to other entities; in fiscal 2009, they provided $1.9 billion to other schools and $1.4 billion to other entities.

Federal initiatives contributed to this growth in research collaboration, as did technological advances that facilitate communication. Other factors were opportunities for division of labor, risk sharing, and increased research credibility.

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Please visit the NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) for more reports and other products.

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Public release date: 3-Aug-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Deborah Wing
dwing@nsf.gov
703-292-5344
National Science Foundation

According to NSF report, federal initiatives and technological advances are contributing factors

A recent National Science Foundation report found that research collaboration among multiple institutions is a growing trend.

The conclusion was drawn by noting increases in the amount of total expenditures for research and development that universities pass through to other institutions and receive from other institutions.

During fiscal years 2000-2009, the amount of R&D funding that passed through universities to others for collaborative projects grew more rapidly than overall academic R&D expenditures. After adjustment for inflation, total academic R&D expenditures increased 47 percent during this period, and R&D funds passed through to others more than doubled.

In fiscal year 2000, universities provided about $700 million to other schools and about $482 million to other entities; in fiscal 2009, they provided $1.9 billion to other schools and $1.4 billion to other entities.

Federal initiatives contributed to this growth in research collaboration, as did technological advances that facilitate communication. Other factors were opportunities for division of labor, risk sharing, and increased research credibility.

###

Please visit the NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) for more reports and other products.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/nsf-rca080312.php

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Emmy Rossum Takes Us Behind The Scenes Of Swirling 'Beautiful Creatures' Set

Ridley Duchannes 'has been basically up to no good, which is a lot of fun to play,' Rossum tells MTV News of her dark character.
By Amy Wilkinson

Emmy Rossum
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1691065/emmy-rossum-beautiful-creatures.jhtml

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Put On Your Sunscreen! Even Fish Are Getting Skin Cancer

?If you're still skeptical that a tan can be dangerous, consider this: Scientists have found that wild fish are getting skin cancer from ultraviolet radiation.?Approximately 15 percent of coral trout in Australia's Great Barrier Reef had cancerous lesions on their scales...It's probably no coincidence that Australia is under the Earth's biggest hole in the ozone layer,? reports the Los Angeles Times.

?Researchers hadn't set out to look for signs of cancer in fish. Scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science were near the Great Barrier Reef conducting a survey of shark prey, predominantly coral trout. They kept seeing strange dark patches on the normally bright orange fish, and for help they turned to another research team from the University of Newcastle in England that was studying coral disease in the area.?

But when the scientists cut the fish tissue into slices and put them under a microscope they found tumor formations. And the tumors looked nearly identical to samples from fish that had been given melanoma as part of a lab experiment.

MORE: 8 Things You Don't Know About Sunscreen

Michael Sweet, a coral disease expert, noted that, ?it was probably not a coincidence that the cancer occurred in the Great Barrier Reef, which sits under the outer reaches of the ozone hole centered over Antarctica. That greatly increases the area's exposure to harmful ultraviolet radiation, which can lead to cancer-causing mutations in DNA.?

Science magazine quoted Sweet as saying, ?It's also unclear whether the quality of diseased fish pose a danger to humans who eat them, he says, but because they are also bred commercially, he is doubtful that diseased ones will ever make it to market.?

Somehow, I don?t find that very reassuring.

The magazine also noted that in addition to ozone layer depletion, Sweet and his researchers think several of the fish species ?may be crossbreeding with each other, resulting in offspring that are more prone?due to the loss or mutation of certain genes?to UV-induced skin cancer.?

But since we?ve still got that big hole in the ozone layer, I?m again not particularly reassured.

All of this falls in line with a study that the HER Institute?(Human and Environmental Rights)?said was done by the University of Sydney that examined the effects of ozone depletion. It noted that, ?Skin cancer has reached epidemic proportions in Australia. Two out of three Australians will get some form of skin cancer in their life times and one out of 60 will develop the potentially fatal melanoma skin cancer.?

?The cost to the community is currently estimated to be $200-400 million per year. With depletion of the ozone layer these figures are expected to get worse. Also the costs to agriculture of animal skin cancers will increase.?

Excuse me while I head over to the drugstore and see if I can find any sunscreen with an SPF of 200.

Are you surprised to find out that fish can get skin cancer? If this situation becomes more widespread would it affect your decision to eat seafood?

? Cancer Rates Steadily Falling

? More Coffee, Less Skin Cancer Risk

? Bird Flu Strain Kills Harbor Seals: Are Humans Next?

Lawrence Karol is a writer and editor who lives with his dog, Mike. He is a former Gourmet staffer and enjoys writing about design, food, travel and lots of other stuff. @WriteEditDream | Email Lawrence | TakePart.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/put-sunscreen-even-fish-getting-skin-cancer-042707418.html

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Scientists Mystified Over How Giant Black Holes Grow

Black holes have long been cosmic mysteries, even as research in the past decade has shed some light on the largest of these dark objects and how matter pours into them.

Scientists say the many remaining puzzles include how the largest black holes were born at the dawn of the universe and how black holes may help shape the fate of galaxies.

"The whole field of 'massive black holes in galaxies' really developed in its own right in the last 12 years, and now it's one of the hottest in astronomy," Marta Volonteri, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, told SPACE.com. Volonteri is the author of a study on the evolution of the largest black holes appearing in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Science.

Black holes have gravitational pulls so powerful, nothing can escape, not even light. Astronomers began mulling over the possibility of black holes in 1783, and scientists used Einstein's theory of general relativity to predict black holes in 1916.

Astronomers know of two "flavors" of black holes: "stellar-mass," which are up to a few dozen times the mass of Earth's sun, and "massive," which can be billions of times the sun's mass ? nearly the mass of all the stars in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Stellar-mass black holes are known to be the remains of dead stars, but it remains a mystery how the far-more-massive black holes formed. [Photos: Black Holes of the Universe]

The first big black holes

One of the most popular theories about the formation of massive black holes links them with the first generation of stars. However, recent simulations suggest these stars were no more than a few dozen times the sun's mass, Volonteri said ? too small to easily achieve the mass of the largest black holes.

One alternative scenario proposes that massive black holes originated from stars up to 1 million times the sun's mass born from gas that rapidly accumulated over less than about 2 million years. Another model suggests the kernels of massive black holes were born from dense clusters of stars in the centers of galaxies that merged to form stars up to a few thousand times the sun's mass, which in turn collapsed to create black holes.

Curiously, astronomers recently discovered that billion-solar-mass black holes existed when the cosmos was less than a billion years old. Scientists are at a loss to satisfyingly explain how such massive black holes could have formed so early in the universe's history.

After a certain point known as the Eddington limit, the energy released by matter rushing toward a black hole should halt the flow feeding that black hole, restricting how large it can grow. Although it is possible that billion-solar-mass black holes could have formed in less than a billion years after the Big Bang, "all odds must be favorable to the black hole, so only lucky black holes can make it," Volonteri said.

Scientists are now exploring whether or not black holes can overcome the Eddington limit and grow at so-called super-Eddington rates. "That would make black hole growth easier," Volonteri said.

Black holes and their galaxies

It remains a hotly debated question whether these massive black holes dominate how their galaxies grow or vice versa. Perhaps the energy these black holes release alters the overall evolution of galactic structures, or perhaps galaxies control how much gas falls into these black holes and thus regulate how large they grow. Another possibility is that massive black holes and their galaxies develop symbiotically.

In the next few years, a variety of telescopes may help answer this question by providing a better look at black holes in multiple wavelengths of light, from radio, infrared and visible light to X-rays and gamma rays, Volonteri said.

It is difficult to study the evolution of massive black holes because they take so much time to develop. However, stellar-mass black holes may help shed light on their larger cousins, since they evolve on humanly accessible time-scales and because as many as 100 million stellar-mass black holes may be scattered throughout the Milky Way.

Stellar-mass black holes are often paired with normal stars in systems known as X-ray binaries. In the past decade, X-ray observatories have helped scientists learn much about how stellar-mass black holes pull matter from their partner stars. In turn, these findings are helping astrophysicists understand how massive black holes do the same thing, said study co-author Rob Fender at the University of Southampton in England.

X-ray binaries apparently can emit bright outbursts of radiation lasting months to years. Researchers suspect the temperature of the disk of matter accreting onto black holes rises as its mass grows, eventually ionizing the hydrogen within. This increases the viscosity of material in the accretion disk, making it easier for it to slow down and get dragged into the black hole. This increased rush of matter into the black hole is apparently what causes the outbursts of radiation from these systems. Eventually the flow of matter into the black hole slows as the accretion disk runs out of material, which makes the disk cool down, resetting the cycle.

This cycle of activity seen with stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries is providing insight into the formation and power of the jets and bursts seen from massive black holes. This titanic activity releases energy that shapes their surrounding galaxies.

An accretion disk was recently detected swirling tightly around a massive black hole ? apparently the remnant of a star that wandered too close. Intriguingly, this material seems to be very near the black hole's event horizon, the boundary beyond which nothing escapes. "By analyzing signals from this material, we can test the predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity, which is quite exciting," said Rubens Reis, an astrophysicist at the University of Michigan, who authored another study in the same issue of Science.

Follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?&?Google+.?

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-mystified-over-giant-black-holes-grow-185849386.html

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Romney?s snoozy 'Mitt?s VP' iPhone app

Two mobile apps released this week offer insight into the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. ?Mitt?s VP? has some intelligent design behind it, but it ends up a riot of styles and is ultimately ungenerous in the extreme. At the same time, ?Obama for America? is clean, Appley-looking and unconfusing. But what the two campaign apps really shed light on is what apps?anyone?s app?ought to be in 2012.

At first glance, ?Mitt?s VP? uses rustic, Americana lettering as if it were a haberdashery window in the age of Grover Cleveland. That?s pretty great. Any hint of Barnumism in a campaign seems like a healthy sign that someone is not taking the venture too seriously.

But that vibe turns out to be only pixel-deep. The app is quickly revealed as a banal, noxiously safe, wavy-bunting-on-the-dais bit of silliness, like a campaign website from the ?90s. The nineteen-nineties. The collision of this nervous patriotism with the sheen of steampunk irony in the design is queasy-making.

But form is not the real problem with the app. What it lacks entirely is a reason for being. I guess it sorta promises access to veepstakes secrets, though time will tell whether app-holders will actually get the first public notification of the decision. (In 2008, the Obama campaign attempted to do the same with text-message subscribers, who instead found out almost three hours after CNN announced Joe Biden as his choice of running mate.)

For the casual downloader and app collector who wants a digital gumdrop or a nifty function now, there?s bupkis. ?Mitt?s VP? is almost spitefully unrewarding for anyone who takes the time to download it.

The usual exchange in the App Store?I tried out both candidates? apps for Apple?s iOS?is that users take the trouble to download things and sometimes pay for them and the apps, in turn, just give and give and give. Games and stuff to read and nuggets of info and ways to optimize the functioning of this and that. Apps should seem cornucopic. One thing they should not do is ask for donations.

It turns out that ?Mitt?s VP??after dangling a promise of veepstakes secrets and a limited-edition bumper sticker?is chiefly designed to facilitate my joining mittromney.com so I can be data-mined, and my contributions and vote can be more heavily solicited.

The app wants me, without even trying to butter me up with a swell animation or something, to enter my street address and ZIP code. Evidently my copious Facebook info, which I lemming-like turn over to the app when I graciously sign in with my Facebook login, isn?t rich enough for Romney and Co.

Street address?! I?m downloading an app, for Pete?s sake. I don?t give my street address to apps I love, like Twitter?s, or ?Scramble for Friends.?

I enter in my city?s name and that?s it. The app doesn?t note the information shortfall and promises me a ?limited edition VP bumper sticker? in my ?mailbox? after the announcement is made. That would be a neat trick if Romney?s people can find me using my city alone.

Even worse, the app promises that if I return to the app later I?ll learn the name of the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee?but for now, I can go to the Web. Apps that throw you to the Web are barely apps, in my view. They?re like suburbs with no retail or attractions that make you keep hitting up a whole other neighborhood.

Like many sloppy, greedy apps that are not worth the bytes they?re ingrained in, ?Mitt?s VP? is junk. And that?s not political. Romney?s app looks weird, it asks for tons of data, and it gives nothing but promises.

The ?Obama for America? app also landed me on the Web?barackobama.com?in record time. Content that?s not optimized for mobile, like content topped with an address bar, is gummy and off-putting on a mobile device. What?s hard to understand about that?

Still, Obama?s app didn?t ask for my address. Instead, it pinpointed me using my tablet?s GPS. When I clicked on ?Events? it pointed me to Obama phone banks that are blocks from my house. Wow. While this may have been more invasive, it seemed more helpful because it?s more the modus operandi of apps. Without asking for too much from me, the app seemed like a service and not a solicitation.

Along the bottom off the app are widgets: Info, Events, Featured, Action and Donate. I liked the ?Info? button especially, which pulls up, inside the app, the campaign?s talking points, including claims about education, national security, ?equal rights,? ?women?s health? and other categories that are illuminatingly broken down. ?Jobs & Economy? is one rubric; ?Taxes? is another.

When alerted to various Obama-related events in my area, I was asked to RSVP, and no doubt that would send me to the Web. (So I refused.) But I did like the idea of ?RSVP? on a button, and furthermore ?Check it out? makes a good button label. That?s how you get to the featured content (on the Web, yes) from the Obama app.

I found ?Obama for America? genuinely useful?for news about the campaign?s message, especially. It?s so simple that it seemed like something designed for the National Gallery in Washington?like an immaculate, government-stamped design. Where the federal government and Apple have, for now, agreed to meet.

Romney?s app just looked weirder in comparison. But then Romney himself (after his traveling press secretary?s ?kiss my ass? comment, especially) seems weird lately, too. Who would have thought that Romney would play the nutter in this election? I guess it had to be one of them. And one thing we?ve learned about Obama?a lesson sealed by this app?is that, win or lose, he never, ever freaks out.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/there%E2%80%99s-a-nap-for-that--romney%E2%80%99s-snoozy--mitt%E2%80%99s-vp--iphone-app.html

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When Social Media Contacts Collide in Person! - Business Info Guide

By Stephanie Chandler on Aug 01, 2012 with Comments 0

Last month I attended the annual National Speakers Association conference in Indiana. Before the event, I sent some tweets with the event hashtag (#NSA12), and one fellow Tweeter wrote back asking if I was attending. We exchanged a couple of tweets and in a crazy twist of fate, ended up sitting next to each other on the connecting flight through Denver, and then shared a car service from the airport to the hotel. What are the odds? That contact was Patrick Allmond (@PatrickAllmond) and we became fast friends.

During a round-table event, one of the people at my table introduced himself and a bell went off in my head. I replied: ?David Newman. Why do I know your name? Are you famous?? He kind of chuckled and we went on to have a great conversation. It wasn?t until I logged on to Twitter later that I made the connection?I had been following David in my ?Favorites? column for over a year.

Shazaam! The magic of merging a social media contact with a live interaction set off fireworks. We scheduled a phone call, discovered we had some very similar business philosophies, and realized we could help each other generate more business. Less than an hour later, David emailed me an excellent, warm lead.

Attending the conference also provided me with an opportunity to meet some other people who I previously only knew because of their books or online collaborations. Jane Atkinson is the author of a book I recommend often: The Wealthy Speaker. She has previously been a guest speaker at my annual Nonfiction Writer?s Conference, and I was a guest for her quarterly teleseminar. When I found out she was also attending the NSA conference, I made sure to track her down so we could meet in person. It was great fun to bring our connection full circle.

This trip showed me the incredible power of starting a business relationship online, and then cementing it in person. It?s not always realistic to meet in person, and you can still have some pretty fabulous relationships based completely online, but when you get to add that human connection to the equation, the bond and opportunities can be even greater.

Next time I attend a conference, I?ll be even more proactive about finding out who is attending, especially among those with whom I?m connected via social media. It will be easy to plant the seed in advance, and it will make the conference experience that much more rewarding.

Do you have any wild conference experiences or tips for making the most of an event? Share them in the comments below?

Filed Under: Social Media

Tags: conference ? national speakers association ? Social Media

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Source: http://businessinfoguide.com/when-social-media-contacts-collide-in-person-how-your-social-network-can-benefit-you-in-the-real-world/

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GOP congressman from Ky. resigns, cites family

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) ? Republican congressman Geoff Davis of Kentucky has resigned, citing a family health issue.

Davis had previously announced he would retire this year from Congress. He says in a statement issued Tuesday that a family health issue has developed recently that needs more of his time.

Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Bill Adkins are running to succeed Davis in November's general election for Kentucky's 4th Congressional District.

Davis is a fiscal and social conservative. Now 53, he has been in the House since 2005. His district stretches along the upper tier of Kentucky from the Louisville suburbs to the West Virginia border.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-congressman-ky-resigns-cites-family-231118681.html

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